Last week I looked at the confusion around Courtly Love and its purported origin in the concept of fin amor in Occitan troubadour poetry. One of the main critiques from Bryson & Movsesian was that scholars of Courtly Love hadn’t looked at the Occitan troubadour poetry itself. So what do the Occitan troubadours actually say about love, fin or otherwise? That’s what we’ll be digging into this time.
In a brief introduction to troubadours on the website for “Poetry at Harvard” we learn that
The corpus of troubadours’ songs counts more than 2500 texts and about 240 melodies. This repertoire came to us mostly in the form of chansonniers or manuscript compilation of songs, made in the thirteenth and fourteenth century (some in Italy). Some of these chansonniers contain biographies of the poets (vidas) and explanation of poems (razos). Some are illustrated with portraits of the poets. A noticeable number of troubadours were female (sometimes called “trobairitz”).
2500 texts composed over two hundred years by authors of different genders and social status is a rather large body to generalize from, but let’s see what we can sort out. In the preface to William D. Paden and Frances Freeman Paden’s translated anthology Troubadour Poems From the South of France (2007) they state
For the troubadours and their listeners, sexuality is the worldly expression of the sacred.
From my readings, I’d like to first address this idea of “sacred love,” which I believe is part of nineteenth century reinterpretations of fin amor. This is not to say that approaching the divine through sexuality isn’t a thing, because it definitely is — just that I don’t believe it was a thing for the Occitan troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the anonymous writer behind the “Poetry at Harvard” intro to troubadours says,
perhaps should we revise our idea of courtly love, and remove from it any cuteness, prudishness or meekness that nineteenth-century troubadourification might have introduced in it.
What fin amor is not
What cute, prudish and meek aspects (perhaps associated with Courtly Love) should we discard in our approach to fin amor and the troubadours? Bryson and Movsesian, in Love and its Critics, spend a long section of their chapter on troubadours dismissing critics who have claimed that Occitan poetry was actually about:
- the Virgin Mary;
- Lady-love a stand-in for higher social status, or “class conflict between the disenfranchised squirine and the established nobility”;
- Narcissistic love: poets are actually praising the masculine Self, rather than the feminine Other;
- Generalized sentiments about love that cannot be taken to include desire for specific persons;
- Anything other than erotic love.
These sort of analyses reminds me of the frustration I felt in school when we were directed to find the Meaning Behind the Story. While there are certainly works created that are chock full of allegorical meaning, there are plenty of times when it is exactly what it says on the tin!
Topics of Occitan troubadour poetry: sexual desire in all its variants
Returning to the Padens, their introduction provides an extensive description of material topics covered in Occitan troubadour poetry:
The poems range from pious hymns to the Virgin to heartfelt celebration of the joys of warfare, but the most prominent theme in the troubadour corpus is sexual desire. … The poetry of the troubadours and trobairitz compels us to recognize that members of fashionable society felt free, when they chose, to ignore the strictures of the Church regarding sexuality.16 …
For more than two centuries, the troubadour poems spoke of desire that was usually but not always heterosexual. In general, male poets describe male desire for a woman, and women poets describe a woman’s desire for a man, but there are also poems in which a troubadour imagines a woman’s desire and a trobairitz imagines the desire of a man.17 … Nuances of same-sex desire surface in Giraut de Bornelh’s alba, in which the watchman focuses on the male lover; in the homophobia invoked by Guilhem de Berguedà; in a leper’s nostalgia for his male lover; in an ambiguous pronoun that complicates an anonymous bawdy poem; and in a song by Bietris de Romans in which the female speaker expresses love for a woman.21 …
Love of God or the Virgin becomes a stronger theme in troubadour lyric of the thirteenth century than it had been in the twelfth.23
For their part, Bryson and Movsesian urge those approaching troubadour poetry to see the sexy bits for sexy bits, and they quote different troubadours to build up a definition of fin amor as a love which is mutual and physical, succinctly worded by the troubadour Marcabru as “two desires in a single longing” (“dos desirs d’un enveia”). They begin with Guilhem IX, the duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou, generally recognized as the first troubadour (also grandfather of Eleanor of Aquitaine). Bryson and Movsesian write:
Guilhem was a man of action and of words, who had a “sardonic wit: he ordered that his mistress’s portrait should be painted on his shield […] declaring that ‘it was his will to bear her in battle as she had borne him in bed’”.161 His poems combine frank enjoyment of sex with longing for love.
Here’s my favorite bit from Guilhem’s poetry which shows both the “longing for love” and the “frank enjoyment of sex”. This is the fourth stanza of Ab la dolchor del temps novel / With the sweet beauty of the new season, as translated by the Padens:
Anquar me membra d’un mati
Que nos fezem de guerra fi
E que-m donet un don tan gran,
Sa drudari’e son anel:
Anquar me lais Dieus viure tan
Qu’aia mas manz sotz son mantel!
I still remember the day
When we made an end to war,
And she gave to me so great a gift,
Her loving and her ring.
God let me live until again
I put my hands beneath her cloak.
The final two lines are an irreverent twist reminiscent of Dorothy Parker and they express a sentiment I can easily imagine coming from a Romance hero in the resolution of a Black Moment.
Bryson and Movsesian also quote from Bernart de Ventadorn, who the Padens describe as “one of the greatest love poets among the troubadours”.
En agradar et en voler
es l’amors de dos fis amans.
nula res no i pot pro tener,
si·lh voluntatz non es egaus.186
In pleasing and in wanting
is the love of two noble lovers.
Nothing in it can be good
If the will is not mutual.
…but most of his poetry which the Padens include in their anthology is of the “please, lady, if you would only smile at me once” variety.
Bona domna, re no.us deman
Mas que.m prendatz per servidor,
Qu’e.us servirai com bo senhor,
Cossi que del gazardo m’an.
Ve.us m’al vostre comandamen,
Francs cors umils, gais e cortes
Ors ni leos non etz vos ges ,
Que.m aucizatz, s’a vos me ren.
Good lady, I ask you nothing at all
Except to make me your servant,
For I’ll serve you as I would a good lord,
And never ask for another reward.
So here I am, at your command,
A frank, humble heart, courtly and glad!
You’re surely not a lion or bear
Who’d slay me when I surrender!
In matter of fact, the lines from Bernart de Ventadorn and others pledging themselves to the will of their “domna” or Lady, make me think of some other research I’ve been doing lately into femdom, or the variety of BDSM with submissive males and dominant females. There’s something to unpack there, but not today. Instead, let’s look at the one aspect of Courtly Love which we haven’t addressed in the context of fin amor and the Occitan troubadours: the unattainability of the love-object.
Adulterous love in Occitan Troubadour Poetry
In Courtly Love, most memorably in Lancelot/Guinevere stories, the main obstacle between the lovers is often the lady’s husband. That can certainly be an aspect of the lovers’ relationship in the work of the Occitan troubadours. Bryson & Movsesian quote the following poem–anonymous, but in a female voice–to illustrate that aspect.
Soufrés maris, et si ne vous anuit,
Demain m’arés et mes amis anuit.
Je vous deffenc k’un seul mot n’en parlés
—Soufrés, maris, et si ne vous mouvés.—
La nuis est courte, aparmains me rarés,
Quant mes amis ara fait sen deduit.
Soufrés maris, et si ne vous anuit,
Demain m’arés et mes amis anuit.53
Suffer in silence husband, be not vexed tonight,
Tomorrow I will be yours, but I am my lover’s tonight.
I forbid you to speak a single word.
—Suffer in silence husband, and do not move.—
The night is short, soon I will be yours again,
When my lover has had his senses’ share.
Suffer in silence husband, be not vexed tonight,
Tomorrow I will be yours, but I am my lover’s tonight.
Bryson & Movsesian also discuss a subgenre of the fin amor verses which address the disappointment of lovers on the coming of the dawn. It’s a sentiment which you may remember in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – many of these lines mention either watchmen or songbirds announcing dawn. But the Padens have something to say about whether or not the focus of fin amor is adulterous.
Occasionally, the singer identifies his or her beloved as married,19 but we do not have good reason to imagine adulterous desire as the norm. If anything, the norm is a man’s love for a lady who is young and whom we may imagine as unmarried, but the subject of marriage arises in few poems. Frequently mentioned obstacles to love include the gilós, the “jealous” or “zealous” one, either singular or plural, which may refer to the lady’s husband (if she has one) or, in the case of an unmarried woman, to anyone—father, brother, or relatives, both male and female—who resists her will to love.
Certainly when we think of Romeo and Juliet, there is plenty of reason why they ought not be spending the night together, but their love is not adulterous. On the other hand, I also have a general sense that getting married was What Women Did in the 12th century. Or was there a surfeit of unmarried women in the noble classes after all the guys went off crusading? That’s a suggestion for further research by other scholars, because demographic studies of medieval Occitan are definitely out of my scope.
However, let’s go back to the stats I gave you at the beginning of this very long discussion: 2500 texts over two centuries. The Padens also cite a number for how many different composers we have existing work from: 360.
How was love presented in Occitan troubadour poetry? Diversely.
I’ll leave you with a snarky quote from D.W. Robertson’s critique of the whole concept of “courtly love”…
the fact remains that almost any medieval literary work that has anything at all to do with love will inevitably be said to show the “conventions of courtly love.” Indeed, in most instances, these “conventions,” carefully selected to fit the work in question, will be said to “explain” the work. Students will dutifully repeat this explanation, because students may be led to say almost anything, and those among them who grow up to become teachers will almost inevitably repeat it to their students.
…and suggest that you follow some of the links I’ve collected below to read the poetry for yourself and see which poems resonate with your views on love.
References & Further Reading
- Bryson, Michael and Arpi Movsesian. Love and its Critics: From the Song of Songs to Shakespeare and Milton’s Eden. 2017. OpenSource Publishers.
- de Wit, Willem-Jan. “Medieval Occitan.” [a collection of links to poems and other sources]
- Jewers, Caroline. “The Cornilh Affair: Obscenity and the Counter-Text in the Occitan Troubadours, or, the Gift of the ‘Gap.’” Mediterranean Studies, vol. 11, 2002, pp. 29–43. JSTOR.
- Kline, A.S. “From Dawn to Dawn: Troubadour Poetry.” 2009. Poetry in Translation.
- Paden, William D. & Frances Freeman (trans.) “Troubadour Poems from the South of France.” 2007. D.S. Brewer (Cambridge).
- Robertson, D.W. The Concept of Courtly Love as an Impediment tot he Understanding of Medieval Texts. [pdf link]. Chapter in The Meaning of Courtly Love (Albany, NY. State University of New York, 1968).
- “The History of Languedoc“. www.midi-france.info.
- “Troubadours.” Poetry at Harvard.
- “Troubadours.” trobar.org [poetry in Occitan, with English translations and midi music where the tunes are available]
- Zingesser, Eliza. “French Troubadours: Assimilating Occitan Literature in Northern France (1200-1400)“. 2012. Princeton University doctoral dissertation.
